T-Mobile records profit as Sprint merger nears

The third largest mobile carrier in the U.S T-Mobile has recorded profit in the third quarter of the year but all attention is been focused on when the merger will occur. The third and fourth largest mobile carriers in the U.S T-Mobile and Sprint are close to a merger as they seek to provide competition to the first and second placed Verizon and AT&T.

With the merger getting closer, T-Mobile posted the results of their Q3 activities during a press conference but the majority of the questions from journalists was focused on the merger date. Legere & Co avoided the questions because it is something they aren’t certain about yet.

In a video blog that was posted, Legere stated that “With all the rumors and speculation out there, we decided that we wanted to make sure you all saw and focused the Q3 results, and not just on the rumors and speculation that seem fill the news every day.”

The deal between the two telecom companies will be undertaken by their parent companies, Deutsche Telekom, a German telecom service and SoftBank, a mobile carrier company based in Japan. The deal is expected to be announced and signed soon according to sources familiar with the talks.

According to Bloomberg, the merger will be delayed for a few more weeks, with Sprint set to announce its own Q3 earnings by Wednesday. T-Mobile had a positive quarter in general, as they added 595,000 postpaid phone subscribers. This has helped in boosting their number of customers who pay higher bills and have better credit scores. When other devices are included, the total number of postpaid customers jumps to 817,000.

This result is the 7th quarter that that mobile company has had the highest number of postpaid customers and the growth is attributed to their marketing skills and some other factors. Their marketing strategies like free international data, giveaway program, and others have helped sway customers to their side. They know the value that Netflix has and that is why their latest deal involves giving away Netflix to family customers that use their unlimited data plan. All these moves and others have helped them is swaying customers to their side.

The Netflix move has benefited customers on other platforms as Verizon and AT&T have also introduced unlimited data plan with HBO bundles and others. Sprint has also followed suit with their one-year free service to customers.

In their report, T-Mobile recorded a profit of $550 million for Q3, with the profit standing at 63 cents a share. Their overall revenue rose to $10 billion, a whopping 8% increase.

Brayden Fortin is a American with numerous years of investment experience in the American Equity Market and in the Global Commodity Market. He has a B.Com degree from a well respected Canadian university and has experience working in the wealth management industry. He is interested in delving into numbers to analyze companies and markets. He won a couple of international strategy simulation competitions involving decision making through numerical analysis, and also scored in the top 50 on the Bloomberg Aptitude Test (out of nearly 200,000 test takers).